The long-awaited Clean Air Act power plant standards will bring significant public health, environmental and economic benefits by lessening our dependence on coal. Harmful pollutants released by burning coal have been linked to an increase in asthma attacks, heart disease, neurological problems, and premature deaths. Carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants contribute significantly to the risks of climate change.

However, additional policies that explicitly support the deployment of renewable energy and increased energy efficiency are needed, so that those resources can complement the role played by natural gas as part of a diversified and affordable clean energy resource base. Putting such policies in place will help ensure that the full benefit of this opportunity to modernize and clean up our electric system is realized.

Protecting Public Health and Strengthening our Economy

In her testimony today, Assistant Administrator McCarthy also quoted from the remarks of President Obama to EPA staff last January: “Safeguarding our environment is also about strengthening our economy. I do not buy the notion that we have to make a choice between having clean air and clean water and growing this economy in a robust way. I think that is a false debate.”

Support from UCS members make work like this possible. Will you join us? Help UCS advance independent science for a healthy environment and a safer world.

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beancounter

OK, great, the “lights will stay on” but you carefully neglected to report how much all this will cost in $$ to energy providers…every penny (and more) to be passed along to us consumers. What is the tab on this?

Actually, I address the issue of costs at length in the background paper referenced in the blog post.http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/clean_energy/EPA-standards-and-electricity-reliability.pdf
The first thing to recognize is that we are already paying huge costs (billions of dollars a year) in terms of the health impacts of pollution from coal-fired power plants. For every dollar spent on reducing pollution from mercury and other toxics, for example, Americans will get $3-9 in health benefits in return.
In addition, there are many cleaner, low-cost alternatives to coal such as natural gas, renewable energy and efficiency. Market forces are already leading to a transition away from coal because it is increasingly uncompetitive compared to these alternatives. We have an opportunity to build on this momentum and transform our electric system to a less polluting (i.e less health costs), more sustainable one for the long term. It would be economically prudent to retire old, inefficient coal plants instead of keeping on sinking dollars into keeping them limping along.

Practical Sam

Great. We get to pay big $$ for EPA heavy-handedness in our electric bills at the same time we will be forced to purchase expensive health insurance to comply with Obamacare. If your wishful health claims had any validity, then applying EPA regs should trigger a repeal of Obamacare. We won’t need the medical profession thanks to EPA…to hear you spin it, anyways.